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A stray dog walks past the Olympic rings during the official flag raising ceremony before the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Wednesday. Authorities have turned to a company to catch and kill the animals so they don't bother Sochi's new visitors, or even wander into an Olympic event.
(AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette)

Already facing security challenges, trying to make hotel rooms ready and defending accusations of homophobia, the city of Sochi is rushing to get rid of one of the Olympic host's more visible problems---stray dogs

"At first I thought someone beat the dog. The dog jumped up and started running around in circles. Then she fell down and started spitting up ... I called the veterinarian. He said there is a 100 percent guarantee the dog was poisoned."

In response to media reports, the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee released a statement this week saying dogs are being relocated, not killed. Vladimir Makarenko, the head of the administration for Sochi's Hostinski district, told CNN he welcomes volunteers to take stray dogs to a new shelter recently on the outskirts of the city.

Despite claims of the shelter, ABC News and CNN report the Sochi government hired local company Basya services to kill as many stray dogs as possible before the games. "Dogs must be taken off the streets even if that means putting them to sleep," Alexei Sorokin, owner of Basia, told ABC news by phone. Sorokin said Sochi has "an epidemic of rabies" stemming from Russian dog owners often kicking their dogs out of their house when they become bored with them. Sorokin didn't shy away from sharing his disdain for the stray dogs, telling ABC News, "Let's call things by their real name. These dogs are biological trash."

Tatyana Leshchenko, a Russian animal activist, told local media, "The city authorities are paying for the murder of each animal but this does not solve the problem. This money should be provided for sterilizing animals and building shelters."

Russian dog advocates are taking their own actions to save the stray dogs. When Igor Ayrapetyan of the Moscow region read a Facebook post about the killing of the stray pets, he and a friend traveled to Sochi and brought back 11 dogs in the back of his BMW SUV..

Vlada Provotorova, a local dentist and a diehard dog person, recruited some friends and together they have collected all the strays they can and placed them in any shelter they can, including in a swamp and in a space lent to them by a dog-friendly couple. Provotorova told the Boston Globe that she and her friends have rescued no more than 100 dogs, while she estimates that between 5,000 and 7,000 dogs have been killed in the current cull.

What you can do

In the United States, about 2.7 million cats and dogs are put down in U.S. shelters each year, according to the Human Society of the United States. The society says getting our own pets spayed or neutered adopting your next pet from an animal shelter will help solve pet overpopulation.

People who want to help the effort in Sochi can sign one of many online petitions calling for an end of the killing of stray dogs, including one on Change.org. One Green Planet, a website dedicated to guiding people to making conscious choices that help people, animals and the planet, started a campaign to stop the Sochi government from killing the city's stray animals for the Olympics. To join their effort, you can sign this petition on Care2 asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop Sochi's cull.

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